More than one thing, actually.
One, I could discuss the disposal of Drake’s body as if he was a discarded banana peel. Agreeing with the mercenary to dismember and bury his pieces in undisclosed locations before he vowed his allegiance to me and tried to travel with me back to Goddess Isles.
I’d refused his escort, even though he’d pledged to Sully that he’d protect me. I already had far too much company: our flying convoy with doctors, machines, and potential death stalking our every move was enough. And besides, with Drake gone, Sully’s greatest enemy couldn’t hurt us anymore.
Two, I could fake bravery and somehow look into the eyes of the three doctors and smile when they smiled and make sense of the regular updates of his condition as he worsened and improved. I learned how to ignore exhaustion and somehow shut down my feelings so they didn’t get in the way of caring for Sully while in the sky.
Three, every time I believed I’d reached my capacity for tragedy, I found a deeper well of strength in which to tap. A well that was bound to dry up eventually, but thankfully had kept me breathing while Sully did his best to crash.
Three times he’d almost died again.
Three times his pulse faded, and three times the doctors prepared the defib and drugs to kick-start him.
And each time, I’d swallowed my tears until my throat was raw and clung fiercely to his hand. I’d pressed my forehead to his. I’d murmured things. Nonsense things. I’d kneeled on the aircraft floor and bowed over his stretcher, plastering myself to his unresponsive body.
The doctors had withdrawn after doing what medical attempts they could provide. They patted my shoulder in consolation as if this time was the time.
The moment when Sully gave up.
But…with my hand in his and my breath skating over his cheek, his pulse hiccupped and restarted with a stronger beat. I’d drift into delirious sleep while draped over him, rocked by the plane and high above the clouds, and as long as we stayed linked, he breathed.
Dr Campbell had been right.
That journey was the longest damn journey of my life.
I never wanted to repeat the panic of hearing the heart monitor growing quieter, slower, silent. I never wanted to see sympathy in anyone’s eyes again. I never wanted to fall in love again if Sully left me.
This was pure agony.
An agony that had whittled me into nothing and left me scarred and hollow.
I’d reached a plateau as we landed in Jakarta, and Sully’s obscene wealth and contacts once again purchased him the swiftest, safest transport possible.
He was transferred outside the same hangar where I’d been given his credit card and told I could never return. I grimaced at the irony that I had returned, and somehow, I’d inherited Sully’s kingdom just by being by his side when he died.
I was too tired to walk between the private plane and helicopter.
Giving up my battle to seem invincible, I kept my hand on Sully’s arm as a crutch. I used his wheeling stretcher as a walking frame and did my best to keep my eyes open as he was placed into the helicopter and a friendly doctor helped me inside.
Sully’s pulse once again slipped down a slippery slope.
I didn’t know if it was ego or truth, but he seemed to fade each time I stopped touching him.
The doctor with auburn hair who’d questioned me when we’d first arrived at the Geneva hospital sat beside me as the helicopter whirred into rotor-spinning violence.
“Touch him.” She took my wrist and placed my palm on his shoulder. Her gaze remained locked on the monitor, watching intently as I touched Sully and winced against his chill.
It took a few breaths, but sure enough, as I kneaded his rigid shoulder, his heartbeat steadied out and found a healthier rhythm. A sudden spike of his pulse, the sudden choice not to die.
The doctor pulled away as the helicopter shot into the sky. She eyed me warily, looking between my link with Sully and my exhaustion aging me by decades. Placing a headset over my ears so she could speak to me, she said quietly, “A few years ago, I was on a team that wanted to prove souls truly existed. We requested the help of terminally-ill patients and asked if they would share their moment of death with us.”
I blinked, her words turning to scrambled eggs in my fatigue-fuddled brain. I shook my head and blinked, then nodded for her to carry on, wanting to understand her point.
“They were placed on a weighing scale and hooked up to monitors. At the precise moment of their passing, all data was processed. We recorded the shift from an alive individual into a cadaver.” She pinned me with a stare. “Know what we found?”